Week 33: August 15, 2021 -- August 21, 2021

Top story of the week:

• Joe Biden is still president.
• Largest one-day arms deal in US history.

Top international non-energy story:

• Afghanistan exit. And here. And here.
  

Top international energy story:

• Price of oil crashes.

Top national non-energy story:

• Delta variant surges.
• GM announces third recall of Chevy Bolts; better article here;
  

Top national energy story:

• WTI drops below $63.
  
• LNG exports surge. 
• California to start building "transitory" power stations.
• Chesapeake acquires Vine.
  

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story:

• North Dakota retains #2 spot as nation's second-largest oil producer.
  
• Spiritwood: Marathon - Archer-Daniels-Midland joint venture, renewable diesel from soybeans.
• Blue hydrogen in North Dakota -- it's happening.
  

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota energy stories:

• Quick connects.

Operators:

• COP looking to sell Bakken assets.
• Comstock Resources looking to sell Bakken assets.
• Grayson Mill acquires several hundred wells from Equinor;
• CLR with four new Whitman permits.
• Scout Energy to re-enter a vertical Heath well; last produced in 1999; will convert to horizontal.

Operations:

• Another CLR Whitman trending toward one million bbls.
  

Wells:

• A Petro-Hunt Charlson well production jumps 7x.
  
• An XTO Nygaard Federal well trending toward 500K bbls crude oil.
• Updating a nice XTO George Federal well in Lost Bridge.
• XTO's Thelma well back on line.
• After eighteen months, Whiting's Brown well is back on line.
• A Whiting Kannianen well goes over 500K bbls crude oil.
• A CLR Whitman well goes over 500K bbls crude oil.

Fracking:

Pipelines:

Bakken 101:

• The lower Three Forks: update; GeoNews;
• Saudi evaluates the Bakken;
• On-going 2020 USGS assessment of the Bakken.

Bakken economy:

• Legacy Fund August 2021 deposits.
• Fastest growing US county over the past ten years.

Commentaries:

• WTI the day Kabul fell.